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Anne Happy

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Anne Happy~♪ (あんハピ♪ /Anhapi♪) is a Slice of Life comedy series written and drawn by Cocoji, and serialized in Manga Time Kirara Forward since 2013. It is licensed for English-speaking audiences by Yen Press, and an animated adaptation by Silver Link. premiered during the Spring 2016 Anime season.

It's a new school year, and for Ruri Hibarigaoka it's also a new start of sorts, especially now that she's been enrolled in the prestigious Tennomifune Academy. However on the way to school, she encounters Anne Hanakoizumi, a girl her age from the same school... Who also happened to be hanging from her collar off the side of a bridge after she tried to rescue a puppy.

After helping Anne with her predicament, Ruri soon discovers that she's also in the same class at Tennomifune, class 7. Unlike the other classes however, which specialize in sports or the arts, class 7 specializes in one thing: the pursuit of happiness. This is because, for one reason or another, every member of the class is beset by some level of "misfortune", and it is the duty of the class as a whole to make sure that they find some way to be happy in their daily lives, in spite of these misfortunes.

Ruri, of course, thinks that this is all unfair, but then again she's not as "normal" as she thinks she is. Can she and her classmates overcome their misfortunes, and find real happiness?

Anne Happy~♪ features the following tropes:

Adaptational Early Appearance: Timothy appears earlier in the anime than the manga, appearing in episode 2 rather than in episode 9. Hibiki and Ren are also introduced earlier in the anime, so they're present for events they weren't in the manga, such as the hiking field trip in episode 6.

All of the Other Reindeer: Tennomifune Academy's admissions are unusually competitive. As a result, Class 7 is seen as a detriment to Tennomifune, and there are some who wonder why the academy even bothers to try to help out these average, if not unfortunate, students.

Amusing Injuries: Anne's and Botan's injuries are treated as comedy, and any physical effects they may suffer from them disappear a few scenes later.

Animation Bump: The quality of animation is insanely high in the first episode when Anne plummets off a bridge after meeting Ruri, emphasizing their newly-born friendship.

Casino Episode: A good part of episode 8 takes place in a Virtual Reality casino, where the various games of chance will be used to measure the luck of Class 7's students, who are supposed to have different levels of Born Unlucky.

Character Title: The story is named after Anne Hanakoizumi, one of the main characters.

Cherry Blossoms: The first episode is full of clouds of falling cherry blossom petals. Fitting, as it's spring during the first day of classes, which appears in April.

Cluster Bleep-Bomb: Kodaira is so ticked off at the girls during the Duel Arena, that once she powers up her Black Knight, she says this gem (where the "bleeps" in this case are replaced with animal sound onomatopoeia):

Kodaira: I'll [NYAAN] your ridiculous [WAN WAN] and [GAO] you!

Combination Attack: The Lucky Happy Miracle Love Attack the girls tried to use on Demon Knight Kodaira in episode 8.

Competitive Balance: Exists among the classes available in the Duel Arena. Ruri's Knight is at a disadvantage against Ren's Wizard, while Hibiki's Archer (which is weak against Mental magic) loses against Botan's Priest (who just happens to have a Sleep spell). Kodaira's Black Knight is actually weak against the Mental magics of Anne's Dancer, but Anne being Anne, is unable to use her class skills properly to take advantage of this.

Conspicuous CG: Timothy, who despite being cel-colored was obviously rendered in CGI rather than hand-drawn.

CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Hibiki swallows water at the beach and loses consciousness, requiring Ren to provide mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Naturally, it's clean, Hibiki makes a full recovery with no long-lasting injuries, and the focus is on Ren giving Hibiki mouth-to-mouth in the first place.

Anne's mom Sakura, being a Class 7 alumna, has nearly the same level of bad luck as her daughter Anne. So she's of course so used to her daughter's situation:

The moment she hears that Anne's going out with her friends in episode 5, she prepares ten exact copies of clothes immediately. Anne goes through all of them before she even meets up with Ruri and Botan.

In episode 7, we can see cushions are strategically put all over the house so that their heads have something to fall on when they inevitably trip and stumble over absolutely everything.

In episode 6, Kodaira-sensei saved the girls from a bear by first shooting it with a rifle, followed by three tranquilizer darts. When Ruri, knowing how strict is Japan's gun control laws, asks Kodaira where does she get all the guns, Kodaira answered she needs all kinds of licenses to protect students as unfortunate as those in Class 7.

Curb-Stomp Battle: Anne is on the receiving end of one during her duel against Kodaira-sensei in the 1 on 1 dueling game. However, the other girls jump in to help her, and ultimately avert the trope.

Cute Machines: Timothy, the cute talking robot rabbit that's been following Anne and her friends around. The reason why he's cute is so that the girls of Class 7 won't mind his presence when he's really used to monitor the girls for the school.

Dancing Theme: The main characters dance for a portion of the anime's opening.

Dark and Troubled Past: There are flashbacks in episode 1 and 9, that reveal Ruri has been ostracized several times in the past. The episode 1 hint occurs when Kodaira-sensei probes Ruri about her misfortune, briefly revealing a real human boy (who might have a connection with the construction sign). The episode 9 flashback shows Ruri is psychologically vulnerable to harsh criticism and withdraws into an emotional shell to avoid further pain. Episode 12 indicates that Ruri's relationship with her parents is a sensitive topic she prefers to tread away from.

Deep-Immersion Gaming: Episode 8, where the girls are first in a virtual casino. Later they go to a different area where they compete with each other in a 1 on 1 duel using generic fantasy classes such as knight and wizard. Unfortunately for Anne, there are no other students for her to duel, so Kodaira-sensei acts as her opponent.

Dysfunction Junction: Everyone in the class 7 has issues. However unlike the usual case, Anne Happy uses it as a set-up for character interactions and laughs instead of being played for drama. Officially their misfortunes are:

Ear Worm: Episode 10 has an In-Universe example. The Timothy Rap song is catchy enough that Ruri worries that she might be hearing it in her head for days.

Elaborate Underground Base: The school has a special obstacle course located more than 400 meters below the surface built just to "study" the misfortune levels of Class 7. It's themed around a board game, down to a person-scaled 6-sided dice. This is anime-only, the same arc in manga happens in a gymnasium-like building that was specifically built for Class 7. The facility makes its return in episode 8, but this time the class is brought to an even deeper section (1000 meters below the school) for their end-of-term special exam.

Ruri meets Anne when the latter is hanging from a bridge beam by her jacket, while holding on to an animal that's biting her.

Botan's hand breaks when she's shaking hands with Anne.

Hibiki has trouble finding her way to school when she's formally introduced.

Ren arrives at school with a bunch of animals clinging to her.

Exposition Fairy: Timothy literally takes this role during the Duel Arena segment in episode 8.

Faceless Masses: Any class 7 students who is not the main cast won't have facial features.

Fantasy Character Classes: During the dueling arena segment of episode 8's virtual class, each of Anne's friends gets assigned one of these when they fight each other:

Ruri is assigned the Knight class, which specializes in strong physical and magical defense.

Ren chooses the Wizard (themed on looking like a Cute Witch, complete with pointy magic hat), who specializes in strong ranged magical attacks.

Botan becomes a Priest (with an outfit that exposes a generous amount of her cleavage), a class that's supposed to specialize in healing magic. However, because of Botan's extremely negative personality, any healing she does actually damages her instead, to the point Hibiki compares her to Undead.

Hibiki gets to be an Archer, a class that specializes in ranged regular and magical attacks using her bow.

Anne picks the Dancer, a class that buffs itself through its various dances, as well as attacks its opponents using Mental magic.

Kodaira picks the Black Knight. Everyone comments on just how such an evil-looking class just fits Kodaira.

Finally, to help in the fight against Kodaira, Timothy allows everyone to change into the Valkyrie class, which specializes in Anti-Demon attacks. It's also deliberately Magical Girl themed.

Festival Episode: Everyone attends a nearby festival during their summer break, where they partake in games, eat food with varying degrees of success, and end the night with a fireworks show.

Golden Snitch: The end of the first happiness training exercise comes down to a best-of-three between two teams. Because of how the score turns out, the last round is worth ten times the previous two.

Hidden Depths: Volume 3 reveals Class 7 students are average when they enter Tennomifune to the point they were often given the All of the Other Reindeer treatment, but at the eleventh grade some of them starts overtaking the other students in terms of performance.

Hikikomori: Tsubaki has crippling social anxiety. The Timothies are the way she attends school without leaving her home.

Hypocritical Humor: Ruri refuses to believe that she suffers the same sort of misfortune as the rest of her classmates. It turns out, she's just as bad as they are.

In Universe Nickname: Anne and Ruri truncate each other's family names, calling each other "Hanako" and "Hibari" respectively.

Instant Cosplay Surprise: One of the penalties of the board game is the girls getting forced to wear animal costumes (Ren gets a tiger outfit showing off her figure, Botan becomes a squid, while Hibiki gets a big bear costume). Ruri, much to her embarrassment, gets to wear a Playboy Bunny outfit instead.

Karaoke Box: One is visited by the girls during their summer vacation.

Lethal Chef: Anne's mom, if she's to be believed. Even something as relatively simple as shrimp tempura apparently gets regularly reduced to charcoal.

Loophole Abuse: As a prestigious school, Tennomifune Academy can't build an actual casino, so what they do in place is make a virtual reality casino for Class 7's exam.

Ruri seems to do this a lot, especially around Anne or when she sees Him, the sign that she crushes on.

Hibiki, towards Ren.

Magical Girl: The oddly-named Valkyrie class in the Duel Arena, which is strong against Demon-type enemies. Even the costumes the girls end up wearing are all deliberate references to members of Pretty Cure (for example, Anne's looks like Cure Pine from Fresh Pretty Cure!, which also had clovers as Motifs).

Measuring Day: Episode 2 is about this, although what is measured is less about the body but Class 7's misfortune.

Mom Looks Like a Sister: Anne's mom, Sakura is absolutely flattered after Botan and Ruri confuses her as Anne's sister at first.

Motifs: Four Leaf Clovers are everywhere; it's part of the series' logo, they're on the school uniform, Anne uses one as a Hair Decoration, and they're all over the anime's opening, ending, and Eye Catch. Fitting for a series focused on unfortunate students.

Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Whenever Hibiki creates something arts and crafts related, she tends to produce something that's terror related and creeps out Ruri. Be that as it may, the items have a high quality appearance and hint Hibiki is an artistic prodigy.

One-Winged Angel: Played for Laughs during episode 8, when Kodaira-sensei does this to defeat the girls in a virtual fantasy fight. When Timothy offers them advice on how to defeat her, she gets rather pissed at him and screams his name while launching a massive attack at the girls.

Panty Shot: And let's say the studio is giving the viewers this kind of fanservice in episode 4. A shot that episode have Ruri's panties plainly visible through her thin dress.

Parental Abandonment: Ruri's parents are on a business trip. This is why she learns to cook herself.

Pet the Dog: At the end of episode 8, rather than let Anne and her friends end their exam with zero points (and thus be forced to spend their summer break taking remedial classes), Kodaira distributes the ten points than Anne "lost" during the start of the episode among the five girls.

The Power of Friendship: One of the main themes the girls are taught, albeit in very unorthodox manners such as working together to defeat Kodaira-sensei's Black Knight during the dueling tournament. Though they sometimes fail, they still learn to lean on each other and rely on everyone's help to get through exams and homework assignments.

Protagonist Title: While Ruri is the focus of the first episode, the series is actually named after (and eventually focuses on) Anne.

Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Anne is forced to duel Kodaira-sensei in episode 8 because all of the other girls have already played their ten games, so she had no one else to duel. However, she is ridiculously outclassed as a dancer taking on Kodaira's Black Knight. This doesn't stop the other girls from jumping into the fight. And with Timothy's helpful suggestion that they change classes, the girls manage to beat their teacher, who in the heat of the battle gets really mad at Timothy, stepping on him and tying him up to a tree later.

Serious Business: Kodaira-sensei has a moment of this during the second half of episode 8. She initially duels Anne, but when it becomes obvious the latter was going to lose, fail the exam and have to take summer classes, the other girls end up jumping in to help. Kodaira-sensei then goes into One-Winged Angel mode, and gets rather pissed at Timothy for his suggestion that the girls change to the Valkyrie class, and use The Power of Friendship to defeat her. Though she congratulates the girls, she steps on Timothy rather hard after the fight, and as the ending credits roll, he is seen tied up and hanging from a tree later that night.

"Shaggy Dog" Story: When it looks like Kodaira is going to beat Anne during their final exam and take the last of her points, Botan, Ruri, Ren, and Hibiki all jump into the battle even though it's against the rules to help Anne out. Timothy gives them a power-up into a new class to defeat Kodaira, and they all perform a Combination Attack... which still isn't enough to win. Their antics cost them all of their points.

She Cleans Up Nicely: When hanging out at Anne's, the main trio give each other makeovers, and Anne and Ruri discover that Botan is actually stunningly beautiful when actual effort is put into her appearance. Considering her very low self esteem, she refuses to accept this.

Shipper on Deck: Anne and Botan are supportive of Ruri's relationship with the construction worker sign.

Towards the end of episode 11, Kodaira-sensei says the following: "Give me the seven defects and eight agonies." This is the title and lyrics of a song from the Japanese death metal band, Mononofu.

Sick Episode: During an especially rainy period, Anne gets a fever after being drenched repeatedly, and spends the next day and a half at home. Ruri and Botan pay her a visit on the first day, and they, Ren, and Hibiki craft Teru Teru Bozu to clear the weather on the second day.

Smashing Watermelons: As part of a transition image in episode 10 of the anime, Ren hits a watermelon with a stick... and also hits Hibiki's, Botan's, and Anne's heads.

Snipe Hunt: What the extra assignment that Ruri, Anne, and Botan have to complete essentially is, where each of them have to take a picture of a specific "lucky item". Unusual for this case though, the actual "hunt" is a very lighthearted affair, and the items themselves are all things associated with "happiness": a wonderful memory shared with friends, (Ruri's) best smile, and the flower of happiness that blooms at the gate of dawn. The latter is the only thing that had a degree of difficulty in finding, as one had to be in a specific place in town at a specific time of day (or, to be specific, when the sun is at a specific height) for it to be even seen.

Spoiler Opening: In episode 10, Ruri acts as if she lacks singing talent when invited to a karaoke. However the opening already reveals Ruri is an excellent singer.

Stripperific: The priest outfit Botan wears for the virtual reality duel is low-cut above and consists of a leotard-like bottom and Showgirl Skirt below. Ruri even comments that it seems sacrilegious. The knight outfit Ruri wears during her battle isn't much better; her only actual armor is a chestpiece that doesn't even reach her midriff.

Surveillance Drone: What Timothy and his fellow rabbit-bots really are, a way for the school administration to monitor the members of Class 7, and measure their "misfortune".

Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Kodaira mentions that the VR arena's jobs work on them having advantages over certain others. For example, a wizard's long-range magic beats a knight's close melee attacks, and an archer is vulnerable to a priest's mental magic.

Teen Genius: Tsubaki, who is the same age as the main cast...who is also the girl behind the Timothies.

Teru Teru Bozu: The point in the latter half of episode 7, when the cast (sans Anne) try to make their own so that the rain can stop.

Theme Music Power-Up: An insert song starts playing once the girls gain access to the Valkyrie class in the Duel Arena.

Throw the Dog a Bone: The stunt the cast pulls during the virtual reality exam battle costs them all of their points. However, Kodaira gives Anne back the points lost during the demonstration and then splits it among everyone else. In the end, Anne ends up saving the others from summer school.

Transformation Sequence: During the Duel Arena in episode 8, particularly when Timothy allows everyone to use the Valkyrie class.

The Unreveal: Episode 3 ends just before The girls' penalty assignments can be revealed. Subverted in that they are the focus of the fourth episode.

Unwanted Harem: This is Ren's misfortune. Her extreme Chick Magnet status causes (female) animals to stick to her as well, despite she doesn't appeared to be interested in any female human, cats, dogs, bunnies, squirrels etc at all, maybe with the exception of Hibiki.

You Gotta Have Blue Hair: The hair colors of the important characters are all in pastels, and while Anne and Hibiki have probably real life hair colors (light brunette and auburn, respectively), they're not the types of hair colors expected in Japanese. Meanwhile, Ruri's hair is purple, while Botan's braids are candy-pink.

What Happened to the Mouse?: The baby chick that Hanako hatched at the end of the first episode. It appeared to have imprinted on her and was very friendly. While it could have made an adorable animal friend for her, it was never seen again.

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